Silence
by peptobismobile
Summary: Mr. Neck's perspective on what he finds in that janitor's closet.


Down the hall, the girls on the hockey team are crowded around what looks like a janitor's closet, and all of them are brandishing their hockey sticks like they're about to beat the life out of someone inside. The star player, a tall, muscular girl – Mr. Neck thinks her name is Nicole – is standing at the front of the group, her eyes narrowed. She says something he can't hear and then her mouth sets into a thin, angry line.

"Hey – what's going on down there?"

Mr. Neck squares his shoulders and prepares to break up a fight when he suddenly sees someone else – a smaller, slighter figure with dark hair – walking slowly down the hallway in his direction. He pauses for a moment before he recognizes that it's Sordino. Immediately, his reaction is to sigh and set his jaw, but as she comes closer he realizes something is not right. Her dark hair is plastered against her face and she is very pale, but most troubling is the large gash across her cheekbone that is welling with fresh blood. Her hand is dripping on the floor and he thinks it must also have been cut open. She walks right past him, not even seeming to see him.

"What happened? Melinda?"

But she doesn't speak. Not one word.

For some reason, to Mr. Neck, this is far more disturbing than her appearance and sets him on edge. Something feels wrong – slippery, dark, like the underside of a heavy, wet pile of leaves that has been left to rot. Something he doesn't want to know about; a situation he doesn't want to approach, but also feels that he must.

"What's going on down there?"

His strides become longer but sluggish as he nears the door to the closet. He doesn't know why, but he is suddenly afraid of what he will find inside of it. The hockey team shifts out of his way as he slowly moves into the doorway. There, leaning against the wall, is the snarky senior boy from In-School Suspension, Andy Evans. Mr. Neck feels a little wave of relief wash over him – there's no monster in this closet. But then, after a moment, Mr. Neck analyzes him, and the little details start falling into place – the glass on the floor, the frantic look in Andy's eyes.

Mr. Neck has heard about this boy from the other teachers – that he's smooth like an oil slick, and very popular with the ladies. But there is and always has been something definitively slimy about him. A dark coil of anxiety winds itself into Mr. Neck's stomach.

"Someone tell me what the hell is going on."

There is a long pause. When someone finally talks, it is Nicole, but she is not responding to Mr. Neck. She's talking to Andy.

"We all know what you did."

Then, quietly, from somewhere else in the group of girls, comes a word. A single word, spoken in a voice that is almost reverently quiet, but underlain with a hatred so strong that it burns him as soon as it reaches his ears.

"Rapist."

That single word expounds upon Melinda Sordino's silence over the past months in a way Mr. Neck would never have thought possible. A wave of guilt washes over him – he never considered that she could have been dealing with something this painful. Never once had he thought that it might be anything other than bad parenting and a poor attitude, was so sure that her silence was just her way of creating frustration in other people. And Andy Evans is the one who has caused her all this pain.

There actually is a monster in the closet.

Before he realizes it, he is reaching out, and taking Andy Evans firmly by the back of the neck, steering him out of the closet and towards the principal's office. Mr. Neck doesn't even know how to feel, or what to do – he's never had to deal with this kind of situation between students before.

But never once does he question what the girls said.

Because he knows it's the truth.

Andy is protesting, stumbling over his words, pleading with him to let him rinse his eyes because he can't see, oh, please – he can't see. So Mr. Neck steers him bodily over to the nearest water fountain, presses the button and shoves the bastard's face right into the water. Andy sputters and coughs before adjusting his head and rinsing out his eyes for the next few moments. When Andy is satisfied that all of the chemicals are out of his eyes, he turns to Mr. Neck, still babbling about Melinda and how she attacked him out of nowhere and what is going to happen to him? Mr. Neck continues to lead him to the office, his grip on Andy firm and unyielding, but he doesn't speak.

His silence says more than any words ever could.


End file.
